UPDATE: KTVU will begin its 4:00 p.m. newscast on Monday June 22nd.

FIRST ON THE BLOG: We want to bring you an update on KTVU’s 4:00 p.m. newscast. We announced on this blog back in April that KTVU wants to expand to the 4:00 p.m. hour by the Summer. They already expanded their morning newscast to 4:00 a.m., but the 4:00 p.m. hour hasn’t come yet. It is summer after all and now we know when it will debut.

Right now, I have no word as to who will deliver StormTracker 2 – The Weather Authority forecast, but there could be a good chance that it can be either be forecast by Chief Meteorologist Bill Martin or by KTVU’s alternating weekday meteorologists Mark Tamayo or Rosemary Orozco. Also no word if traffic segments will be put into the newscast.

Once this launches, the newscast will compete against KGO 7’s ABC 7 News at 4:00 for local weekday news in that timeslot.

However, the newscast will receive a SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW next week. Due to FOX Sports’ coverage of The U.S. Open Golf Championship (in which FOX received rights to air the tournament, last year), KTVU’s 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. newscasts will be pre-empted and therefore, KTVU will air a temporary sneak preview of the newscast at 4:00 on Thursday June 18th and Friday June 19th, 2015, before it officially launches on Monday June 22nd, 2015. There will be no special sneak preview on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of that week, as TMZ LIVE will remain at 4:00 p.m. Once the newscast launches, that program will move to 3:00 p.m.

So this is the very latest that I have on the newscast as of this hour. We’ll keep tabs if other newscasts are changed on other stations. Stay tuned.

10 thoughts on “UPDATE: KTVU will begin its 4:00 p.m. newscast on Monday June 22nd.”

KGO-TV 7 should expand its 11:00 am midday newscast to a full hour. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is stilled aired at 11:30 am on KGO. All the ABC O&O stations have hour long midday newscasts such as KABC in LA, WLS-TV in Chicago if Windy City Live is counted as a newscast, WABC-TV in NYC, and WPVI-TV in Philly.

It could be a possibility in the future that ABC could sell KFSN-TV to another company It would still be an ABC affiliate but no longer an ABC O & O station. I think ABC could swap KFSN for a TV station in a larger TV Market. I don’t see the value of an ABC O&O station operating in a midsize TV Market like Fresno. ABC having an O & O station on a UHF frequency in a TV Market like Fresno really has no value for ABC. Most O & O stations normally operating in the large TV Markets. I think WTVG-TV 13 in Holy Toledo use to be an ABC O & O and they sold it. Fresno is not a top 50 TV Market. Most ABC O & O stations operate in the top 10 TV Markets expect for WTVD-TV in Raleigh/Durham but RDU is still a top 50 TV Market.

One move ABC should regret is not buying WJLA-TV in Washington DC. Instead they allowed looney Sinclair to buy WJLA-TV. WJLA would have been a great ABC O & O station and they could have sold KSFN-TV in exchange for WJLA-TV in a top 10 Market.

ABC will probably regret it when Sinclair runs WJLA into the ground like the way Sinclair is starting to run KSNV NBC 3 in Las Vegas into the ground into the ground or if Washington DC doesn’t have a 24-hour all day news channel anymore Newschannel 8 because there have been rumors that Sinclair wants to make Newschannel 8 from a local news channel to a national channel. Look forward to another FOX News. I think ABC will regret that they could have had the chance to make WJLA the top news station in Washington DC. I know all the other ABC O & O stations local newscasts are number one news in the markets they operate. I don’t know if WJLA or WUSA are last place in local news in DC. But I think at one time WJLA was rated last place for local news in DC.

They won’t sell KFSN, they use it for technological experiments, for subchannels and other things that they want to test there before it goes to the rest of the O&O’s.

ABC doesn’t want WJLA! If they wanted more stations they would have bought WJLA, and they didn’t buy it because WJLA was part of a set with the rest of the Abittron stations. If ABC wanted to expand they would buy WFTV in Orlando first by offering a very sweet deal for COX.

WSB was built and signed on by Cox in 1948, and I seriously doubt that Cox would want to give up its Atlanta flagship station anytime soon. I also doubt that Cox would want to give up its Orlando and Charlotte stations anytime soon either.

If ABC wanted to expand its ABC O&O portfolio, I could see WPLG Miami (currently owned by BH Media, and previously owned by Post-Newsweek/Graham) being ABC O&O bait, and Miami is a Top 20 market. WJLA would’ve been an ideal ABC O&O candidate, but Sinclair got it instead. Other ideal ABC O&O candidates… WFAA Dallas, which I doubt that Gannett/Tegna would want to give up anytime soon… and WCVB Boston, and I also doubt Hearst would want to give that one up either, plus Hearst and ABC have a strong relationship.